A lecturer at the Rivers State University (RSU), Port Harcourt, Professor Adolphus Joseph Toby, has blamed Monitary policies of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for the high inflation rate in the country .
Toby, a Professor of Banking and Corporate Finance at the State-owned University, urged the CBN to change its modus operandi in other to curtail the current 20 percent inflation rate.
He noted that the country was facing “serious banking crises and needs council of regulators in the sector instead of a single regulator as currently being practised”.
Prof. Toby, a former Dean, Faculty of Management Sciences, RSU, made these assertions while presenting his Inaugural Lecture on the topic, “Eating Well And Sleeping Well In Fragile Financial Markets: The Banking Trilemma And Corporate Finance Puzzles, during the 81st inaugural lectures of the Institution held at the Senate building in Port Harcourt, midweek.
He said the lecture was intended to show how the policy actions of the Central Bank and the banking institutions affect the depositors, small firms, rural financial sector, and the economy at large.
“In our context, financial markets are fragile when defaults maximise and welfare minimises in response to a shock or crisis. Over the year, our financial markets have been characterised by heightened vulnerability due to defaults or outbreak of financial disorder.
“We can achieve a zero free distress banks in the country through a comprehensive monitory policy. The CBN must be proactive in their actions and not to wait on when things have gone worst with the banks”, while recommending what he called “Toby ‘s Nigerian Banking Soundness model”.
According to him, “in terms of liquidity and profitability, the banks eat well and sleep well, while the depositors are not eaing well and sleeping well”.
He, therefore, urged that the Federal Government, through the CBN, to “come out with a policy that banks leaves parts of their profits with the depositors.
Toby recommended, among other things, that the CBN should inform representatives of the vulnurable sectors on the monetary policy and collaborate with the academia on policy formulation .
Earlier in his address of welcome, the Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof Nlerum S. Okogbule, commended the inaugural lecturer for his mastery and intellectual capacity, describing him as “a truely breed academic”.
He noted that inaugural lectures afford the university the opportunity to “project itself to the wilder society through its various research works that would aid in policy making.”

By: Akujobi Amadi